Legislative Memos

Memorandum of Support - S.9086 (Parker) / A.9472 (Magnarelli)

S.9086 (Parker)/ A.9472 (Magnarelli) – AN ACT to amend the public service law and the public authorities law, in relation to creating a resilient electric vehicle charging system pilot program

The Independent Power Producers of New York, Inc. (IPPNY) is New York’s premier trade association dedicated to representing the largest fleet of clean energy generators in New York State and companies involved in: the competitive power supply industry; the development of electric generating facilities; the generation, sale, and marketing of electric power; and natural gas transmission facilities. IPPNY Member companies produce the majority of New York's electricity, utilizing all sources such as: wind, solar, hydro, energy storage, natural gas, low sulfur oil, waste-to-energy, biomass, and nuclear.

IPPNY supports S.9086 (Parker)/ A.9472 (Magnarelli). This legislation would help expand the State’s efforts to broaden the reliability and resiliency benefits of microgrids for critical infrastructure. Additionally, the bill would support the State’s transition to having all new passenger cars sold in New York to be zero emission by 2035, including all emergency response light vehicles, as part of the electrification to meet the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act’s targets. New York’s transportation system accounts for approximately 28 percent of statewide greenhouse gas emissions, and reducing these emissions depends upon rapid deployment of charging stations.

This bill would require the NYS Public Service Commission to create a resilient electric vehicle (EV) charging system pilot program, which would have a total program cap of 50 MW. The program would value uninterrupted resilient carbon free power generation produced within an EV microgrid that supports electric vehicle charging throughout an extended outage of 24 hours or more. This generation would not use fossil fuels and would be 1.5 MW or less in size. Additionally, the New York Power Authority and the Long Island Power Authority would establish a similar program.

The NY Prize Community Grid Competition demonstrated the benefits of private sector investment in microgrids across the State. The program included private developers, local governments, community organizations, non-profit entities, and critical infrastructure customers, such as hospitals, police stations, fire stations, water treatment facilities, universities, schools, and libraries.

This legislation proposes that a new Value of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) stack category be developed to value electricity produced from resilient EV charging microgrids. Recognizing the environmental value provided by DER would help maintain the State’s renewable energy baseline and foster the resilience and security that is necessary as the EV transition continues.

For these reasons stated above, IPPNY supports S.9086 (Parker)/ A.9472 (Magnarelli).